At the hearing, Dowell told the judge that he had could not produce subpoenaed documents because emails he had sent about the operation from his work computer had been deleted and he had lost a thumb drive containing photos when it dropped out of his pocket and fell in the gutter.

The Statesman reports that Judge Campbell expressed frustration with Dowell, while Garza's attorney remarked, "I think he decided it was time the dog ate his homework."

they did this at every major protest i know about. look at their boots. cops are the biggest assholes on the planet. the only good cop is a dead cop. or a cop on TV. they have awesome PR. still, they are total assholes in real life.

gaspode:2 to 12 years for putting a plastic pipe over your arms to make it harder to drag you around? Really the fark you say?

I'm waiting for completely arbitrary and unlimited punishment for any crime or appearance of having committed a crime to be codified into law. Selective enforcement can only help the owners of society so much.

"We obviously had an interest in ensuring people didn't step it up to criminal activity," he (Police Chief Mannix) said. "There is obviously a vested public interest to make sure that we didn't allow civil unrest, violent actions to occur."That is so very obvious.

/This is what OWS sympathizers believe//Cops should serve the sentence in place of the people they provoked.

Except that most Occupiers don't commit crimes, only a handful. And it seems among those handful, some aren't really even Occupiers. But keep regurgitating that fearful protect the status-quo rhetoric, buddy.

batcookie:Except that most Occupiers don't commit crimes, only a handful. And it seems among those handful, some aren't really even Occupiers.

Ah, the "no true Scotsman" defense. Yeah, that'll work.

...except for the guys who wanted to blow up that bridge in Cleveland, who were definitely, really OWS supporters (except for the FBI guy who infiltrated them). The building they used in Cleveland was leased by one of the wannabe bombers.

*Obviously* any cop that encouraged criminal behavior was actually a member of OWS *all along*, and was retroactively enrolled in the Police Academy by Obama and his magical time machine.

Geez people, didn't you see The Departed? Criminals infiltrate the police all the time! OWS was no grass roots effort, but a skillfully crafted conspiracy decades in the making, just waiting for a bla... er, I mean liberal enough President

Police admit to infiltrating Occupy Austin, may have acted as provocateurs to get protesters to commit a felony

That's CRAZY talk, submitter! The police would NEVER do do this. You guys should all adjust your TINFOIL HATS!Oh . . . the police are admitting this?

You know, while were on the subject: can someone explain exactly WHY the police response in this country to Occupy demonstrators (or the G8 summit or political demonstrations in general) is so completely batshiat over-the-top? You'd think the cops were expecting a wave of fire-bombings and total anarchy rather than a peaceful demonstration by a bunch of disorganized hippies.

Another victory for the good guys! I want ANYONE who shows open dissent against the State to feel the full force of Justice. These young americans who are protesting are often the groups that harbour terrorist agendas and should be targeted and treated as a burgeoning criminal entity.

First they put the frog into the pot, then they every so slowly turn up the temperature a little bit, over time. Give the frog a few distractions along the way and voila, you have frog legs~

fusillade762:Is the "Obvious" tag out back getting beaten by the cops?

At the hearing, Dowell told the judge that he had could not produce subpoenaed documents because emails he had sent about the operation from his work computer had been deleted and he had lost a thumb drive containing photos when it dropped out of his pocket and fell in the gutter.

The Statesman reports that Judge Campbell expressed frustration with Dowell, while Garza's attorney remarked, "I think he decided it was time the dog ate his homework."

*oh-snap.jpg*

Somehow, I'm certain that a decent computer forensic specialist could find that missing data rather quickly.

/have had to do it in various civil cases against the police//they almost always use the "dog ate my homework" bit///95% recovery rate. The amusing ones were the recovered e-mails where the officer claiming that data had been lost was found to have sent e-mails telling other officers to delete the data

NutWrench:Police admit to infiltrating Occupy Austin, may have acted as provocateurs to get protesters to commit a felony

That's CRAZY talk, submitter! The police would NEVER do do this. You guys should all adjust your TINFOIL HATS!Oh . . . the police are admitting this?

You know, while were on the subject: can someone explain exactly WHY the police response in this country to Occupy demonstrators (or the G8 summit or political demonstrations in general) is so completely batshiat over-the-top? You'd think the cops were expecting a wave of fire-bombings and total anarchy rather than a peaceful demonstration by a bunch of disorganized hippies.

I think the WTO riots in Seattle in the late 90s kind of spooked police agencies about these things.

Developing ways to weed out the pigs seems like it'd be a really fun way to contribute to one of those organizations. For instance, I think there was an article here a while back about a guy who used to require all members of his little organized crime group to have huge, kinky orgies. That's going a bit far for a political group, but ideas are ideas.